Cao Bianjiao said angrily: "If I had known that Hong Chengchou was such a person, I would have cut him with one knife before Jiannu broke the city!"

Li Guodong actually knew what kind of person Hong Chengchou was, so when he sent someone to rescue Cao Bianjiao, he deliberately did not rescue Hong Chengchou. The purpose was to expose Hong Chengchou's essence so that he could cut him into pieces in the future. After the Qing Dynasty entered the pass, the person who contributed the greatest contribution to the Qing Dynasty's unification was not Wu Sangui or Sanshun King, but Hong Chengchou! Therefore, Li Guodong had long wanted to let Hong Chengchou die, so he would give him a chance to be a traitor, and then seize him and cut him into pieces.

But it is not Li Guodong's approach to letting go of the return group in this way. A severe blow to the evil return group must be dealt with. Cracking the return group is equivalent to cutting off one of the Qing army's arm.

Li Guodong said: "We can form a small elite force to cross the river to assist the Zhongzhen Camp in combat, but Jiangbei still cannot give up completely. The eastern front is to defend the river and must guard the Huai River; the middle road is to guard the river and must guard Jingxiang."

Cao Bianjiao said, "If you still guard the river, you must guard Jingxiang, and Xiangyang has been lost."

Li Guodong smiled and said, "As long as there is still Zhongzhen Camp moving around Xiangyang, Xiangyang will not be lost. If the Tartars want to go down the Han River, they will be restrained by Zhongzhen Camp. This is why Hong Chengchou wanted to destroy Zhongzhen Camp first. Without destroying Zhongzhen Camp, they would have no way to let go of their hands and feet and cross the river to the south."

Although Xiangyang has been lost, Jingzhou is still in the hands of the Huai Army, and the Zhongzhen Camp around Xiangyang still controls the vast rural areas. There are also naval activities of the Huai Army and Zhongzhen Camp on the Yangtze River. It is not easy for the Qing army to cross the river. Once Hong Chengchou cleans up the Zhongzhen Camp around Xiangyang, the Qing army can let go of their hands and feet to attack Jingzhou. If Jingzhou is lost again, the Yangtze River defense line will be in danger.

What Li Guodong has to do now is to stop Hong Chengchou's strategic plan. He must send a small army across the Yangtze River to the north to assist the Zhongzhen Camp.

Two days later, everything was ready, Li Guodong left Shen Yunying's master and servant in Wuchang to guard the city, and took Cao Bianjiao and a thousand Huai troops on a boat to cross the river to Jingzhou.

These more than a thousand elite Huai Army were carefully selected elite veterans. Although they were all light infantry, they had excellent weapons. Among them, 500 were crossbowmen, carrying strong crossbows and waist knives, wearing vine armor; 500 grenadiers, carrying long swords, shields and grenades, wearing vine armor. Elite light infantry equipped with vine armor were flexible and light, with very high defense. There were twenty scattered soldiers equipped with rifled rifles and ten elite soldiers who were not taken away at night. Many of the soldiers in this army were Miao people, and in fact this was the prototype of the future mountain troops.

The fleet went upstream and arrived at the Jingzhou River, crossed the river to Jingzhou.

Li Guodong led a thousand elite Huai troops to get off the ship and went ashore. Li Guo, who was stationed in Jingzhou, came out of the city to greet him.

"Dude, since Hong Chengchou came to Xiangyang, our army's territory has been compressed by Jiannu. Hong Chengchou mobilized the gentry to form a return group, Jingweiying and Sushanying, which were specifically targeted at our people. I don't know how many villages were destroyed by them, and countless people were brutally massacred." Li Guo complained to Li Guodong.

Li Guodong said: "This time Li came here to deal with the old thief Hong Chengchou! The light infantry I brought was to specifically restrain the return group. As long as you can block the main force of Jiannu, we will have a way to eliminate the return group."

The characteristics of the Returning Home Regiment are small scale, flexible, fast movement, and familiar with mountain terrain operations. These characteristics make Zhongzhen Camp very troubled. The Returning Home Regiment enters the mountainous areas controlled by Zhongzhen Camp to harass and destroy, and the militia is no match for them at all. They burn, kill, plunder everywhere, mainly to destroy production and kill people. When the main force of the Zhongzhen Camp came, the Returning Home Regiment had already run away without a trace. Not only could he escape unscathed, but he could also attract the main force of the Qing army with excellent weapons, which caused Zhongzhen Camp to suffer a great loss.

Zhongzhen Camp originally used the Qing army to deal with the mountainous terrain that was far more than its own. In such a large mountainous area, how could Zhongzhen Camp take into account every village? This gave the return group an opportunity to take advantage of it.

Li Guodong's elite light-equipped troops are the nemesis of the Returning Home Regiment. This elite light-equipped troops, even if they meet the main force of the Qing army, have the power to fight and can escape if they can't beat them. This army is a fast harassing force. In short, they can't beat me and they can't beat me.

Three days later, Li Guodong took his mountain troops to set off. Originally, he didn't need to lead the team to fight in person, but Cao Bianjiao was a cavalry general who was good at riding horses and was not good at mountain wars. Hao Yaoqi, who was good at mountain wars, was not around, so Li Guodong had to lead the team in person.

This mountain force took a small boat and passed through the crisscrossing river network on the Han River Plain and entered the mountainous areas in northwestern Hubei.

After entering the mountainous area, Li Guodong and his team walked for a whole day and finally saw the first village, but it was obviously burned by people. What caught their eyes was the ruins that were burned to the dark. Walking into the village, there were dead bodies everywhere, and there were various ways to die. Some were hung on trees, some were broken, some were burned to charcoal, some had no heads, some were dragged to the ground with their intestines, and some were thrown into pieces, and some were torn into pieces by babies. The corpses of women were even more terrible, and they could see the humiliation they had suffered before their birth.

"Beast! Beast! Hong Chengchou! You were originally from the Ming Dynasty, why did you help Jiannu slaughter us Ming people!" Cao Bianjiao roared angrily.

Li Guodong said: "Precisely because Hong Chengchou was originally from the Ming Dynasty, he was even more ruthless in dealing with us Ming people than Jiannu!"

Not far away in Xiangyang City, Hong Chengchou, dressed in the costume of a first-class Qing Dynasty, sat on the chair of the Grand Master in the middle of the lobby. He took off the hat on his head and put it aside. From time to time, he reached out to touch his big bald head and touched the rat-tail braid on the back of his head.

Touching his bald head, Hong Chengchou remembered that when he had just surrendered to the Qing Dynasty, he was unwilling to shave his head at first, and he wanted to keep the Han people's hair tie and clothes to surrender to the Qing Dynasty. However, Huang Taiji firmly disagreed and asked Fan Wencheng to tell Hong Chengchou: "As an official in the Qing Dynasty, I must shave my hair and change my clothes! Otherwise, I would have a different intention towards my Qing Dynasty!"

At that time, Hong Chengchou asked Fan Wencheng to reply, saying that he would rather be a civilian in his capacity as a civilian in his capacity as a Qing Dynasty, but he would be better off as long as he retained his Han hair style and clothes. However, Huang Taiji still disagreed and asked Fan Wencheng to pass on the message: "The Qing Dynasty likes you, and lets you serve the Qing Dynasty! If you surrender to the Qing Dynasty as a civilian in his capacity as a civilian, then there are only two choices: the first is to be a slave to the bannermen; the second is to lose their heads."

In the end, Hong Chengchou chose to shave his hair and change his clothes. At first, he was not used to it, especially the Han businessman who came to Shengjing to do business, looking at his contemptuous gaze. Over time, he gradually got used to it.

However, after the Qing Dynasty entered the pass, Hong Chengchou saw more Han people. Almost every Han person looked at him with extremely contempt. After the Qing Dynasty entered the pass, in order to bribe the hearts of Han officials, Dorgon did not force the officials to shave his hair. As a result, every time he went to court, many officials who were still wearing Ming robes looked at Hong Chengchou with strange eyes, which made him feel uncomfortable all over.

Thinking of this, Hong Chengchou suddenly stood up, picked up his official hat and put it on his head, and said viciously: "I must help the Qing Dynasty unify the country and let all the Han people shave their hair and change their clothes! In this way, they will not despise me when they see my money rat-tail! No one will spit at me!"

"Report!" At this moment, a Qing army spy ran in and knelt on the ground, "Master Qi Bian Hong, the pseudo-Ming Chu Duke has crossed the river to Jingzhou."
Chapter completed!